


your taste in my mouth

by stevenstamkos



Series: ring it up [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Not Hockey Player(s), Getting Together, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 13:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15292464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevenstamkos/pseuds/stevenstamkos
Summary: “It’s you! You were sitting behind me in the library!” Taylor says. It comes out very loud. “You—You pizza thief!”“Oh, hi,” the guy says, like he’s not standing there holding Taylor’s stolen pizza.





	your taste in my mouth

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this tweet](https://twitter.com/gracearnprie/status/1014337975583367169?s=21). This fic is totally Hannah's idea.
> 
> I was an econ major for two years before I switched to chemistry, so I’m both Taylor and Mathieu at the same time. God.
> 
> Title from "Cannonball" by Little Mix.

“You know,” Mathieu says, “my roommate is a business major. Maybe you two can get together and talk about money or whatever business and econ people talk about.”

“For the last time, business isn’t econ, and I don’t study _money_ , I study _markets_ ,” Taylor says, even though halfway into his third fall semester at USF, he still barely has a functioning idea of what “markets” actually means. “Don’t you have like, items to scan?”

“There’s no one in my lane.”

Mathieu gestures at his empty lane, where there are indeed no customers waiting for him to weigh their boxes of strawberries and bags of organic soybeans or whatever. Just as he says that, a little old grandma-looking lady turns into his lane, pushing a cart stuffed to the top with fresh produce. Mathieu sighs.

“Karma for trying to set me up,” Taylor says, before escaping back to the floor where he can at least walk around and assist customers instead of being stuck behind a cash register all day.

“You’re going to die lonely and sad and in debt,” Mathieu yells after him.

There’s a scandalized gasp from the little old lady, but Taylor only snorts. “We’re all going to die sad and in debt, Jozy!”

 

Not that Taylor spends all day thinking about the crushing burden of student loans or anything. He just spends part of his day doing that, like every time he checks his bank account or thinks about buying something nice for himself, like food or nosebleed tickets at a Lightning game.

 _This degree better be fucking worth it_ , he thinks as he walks into the campus library.

It’s midterm season, which means that the library is busier than usual, and it takes him a good couple of minutes to find an empty seat. When he does, the chair is being blocked by a guy at the next table, who’s busy poking away at his laptop, nothing of him visible except for the Lightning snapback he’s wearing backwards. Taylor taps the guy on the shoulder, and he politely scoots in so Taylor can pull out his seat.

“Thanks,” Taylor whispers loudly.

The guy doesn’t look up, just gives him a lazy thumbs up and keeps typing with his other hand.

Taylor settles in and pulls out his laptop, setting up for a good long study session. He’s got his intermediate macro midterm in two days, and he still doesn’t get the Phillips curve at all, so he’s pretty sure that he’s at least halfway fucked. The girl next to him is flipping furiously through her laminated flashcards. She looks like she has her life together a lot more than Taylor does.

He looks around at the dozens of students shuffling papers and typing away on their laptops, completely dialed in and focused.

 _Okay Taylor, time to get to work,_ he tells himself.

He cleans the screen of his laptop first, carefully lifting the post-it note with his Domino’s account info to get at the dust underneath it. And then he gets out his headphones and plugs them in and opens up Spotify, looking for a good Post Malone song to get him going. He opens the PDF file on the Phillips curve, and he gets down to work.

Which is to say that Taylor reads for a while, zones out halfway into federal unemployment statistics from 2008, and finds himself dicking around on Facebook and texting Brett. He pulls himself back to the PDF but drifts off again when he gets to a bunch of graphs showing wage rates over the last decade.

 _I deserve a break anyway,_ he thinks as he opens up his email for the fourth time.

There’s nothing new in there except an email from Dick’s asking if he wants to buy another Rays hat, which Taylor kind of does, so he wastes some more time browsing Dick’s website and fills his cart with a Rays hat and a Blake Snell Rays jersey and then, in a moment of dickishness towards Brett, a Brayden Point Lightning shirt. His total is $187.99, which is $187.99 more than he can afford, so Taylor stares at his cart wistfully for another minute before closing the tab.

And then back to the PDF for some twenty minutes, and then to the vending machine for some Cheetos and a Powerade.

The guy sitting behind Taylor is turned around and facing Taylor’s workspace when Taylor gets back to his seat, and he gives Taylor the kind of tight-lipped smile that students in the library give each other, the _I’m dying and I know you’re dying too_ look of solidarity.

Before Taylor can say anything, the guy turns back around and goes back to typing his paper.

The Phillips curve doesn’t get any more interesting with snacks, but at least Taylor has food now. The downside is that he spends most of his time focusing on not crunching too loudly and bothering flashcards girl next to him.

When he’s done with the Cheetos, he stretches, leaning back in his chair and tipping it onto its back legs just a bit. He must lean too far though, because his arms knock into the brim of a snapback, and Taylor turns in time to catch the hat as it falls off the guy behind him.

“Shit, sorry,” he whispers.

The guy’s eyes are super blue, and he’s actually kind of hot. Blond hair falling in his face. He bites his lip and then smiles at Taylor, lopsided and closer to a smirk than a true smile. Whatever, it’s hot.

Taylor needs to pass this midterm and then get laid.

“It’s cool, man,” the guy says. He’s speaking quietly, leaning half out of his chair and twisted around and touching Taylor in at least three places, and Taylor feels really stupid for a minute. Like, stupider than he was already feeling.

The snapback goes back on the guy’s head, and he shoots Taylor one more look before turning back to his laptop.

Taylor slouches in his seat and resists the urge to turn around again. Instead, he pulls his own laptop toward him and opens up his email for the fifth time just to do something that’s not a) studying econ or b) staring like a creep at the hot guy studying behind him.

 _Maybe I’ll take you up on your offer_ , he texts to Mathieu. _About your roommate. Need to get laid_.

Mathieu doesn’t answer right away, probably because he’s crying into an orgo textbook somewhere on campus.

Poor dude. Taylor looks up from his phone to see that his email has loaded, and he glances through the two new emails he’s gotten.

The first is a reminder from his econ TA that the midterm will indeed cover the topics that are currently giving Taylor an epic ass-reaming. _Fuck Phillip and his fucking curve_ , Taylor thinks viciously.

The second is a Domino’s order confirmation.

Which is like, really weird, because Taylor didn’t order any Domino’s.

As he reads the email and starts to put the pieces together, his confusion gives way to silent outrage. Someone _hacked_ into his Domino’s account and used his points to order a free pizza? What the fuck? He skims the details. It’s a carry-out order, to be picked up at a Domino’s right here in Tampa. It’s the one on East Fletcher Ave, just a few minutes from the library.

He closes his laptop and throws everything in his bag except for the empty Cheetos bag, which he tosses in the bin on his way past. It’s evening, getting past dinnertime, and his thoughts turn to food again as he steps outside.

Which just makes the stolen pizza more insulting, to be honest.

Taylor’s on the phone in like two seconds, calling the Domino’s, and it takes some explaining for the guy on the other end to get that he’s not _Mitchell_ , and he really didn’t order that pizza. Taylor has to use the word “hacked” like three times for the guy to believe that it wasn’t his friends using his account or something.

When he does get it though, the guy is totally on his side. “You want me to take it out of the oven and throw it out and tell whoever comes for it to fuck right off?”

It would be cool, but not as satisfying as what Taylor has in mind. “Nah, I’m coming over right now. I wanna tell this Mitchell to his face.”

 

Normally, Taylor would walk everywhere because Tampa traffic is its own special level of hell and he can’t afford car insurance, but he has to beat the pizza thief to the store, so he calls an Uber just this once. He hopes whoever the thief is, he sweats his way through the Florida heat and humidity.

The Domino’s is only half-full when Taylor gets there, and he doesn’t have to wait in line at all. He marches up to the counter and says to the guy there, “Hey, so my account was hacked.”

“Oh yeah, it’s you! The person didn’t come yet. You sure you don’t know a Mitchell?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“Okay cause I know a lot of people let their family and friends and roommates and stuff use their Domino’s account, so.” The guy shrugs. His name tag says BORIS. That’s the tightest name ever, Taylor thinks.

“I’ve never let anyone use my account,” Taylor says, even though that’s a blatant lie.

But it’s not like Brett or Mathieu or Tony ever _remember_ his password, right? And they’d at least shoot him a text if they’re gonna order something. And they _definitely_ wouldn’t use Taylor’s hard-earned points to get a free pizza off him.

Boris just nods like he actually believes Taylor. “Okay, just chill to the side or something, and I’ll let you know when the guy shows up.”

“Thanks, bro. I owe you one.”

Taylor steps off to the side, checking his phone for messages as he waits. There’s no reply from Mathieu about his roommate, but Taylor does have a typo-filled text from Brett, who should be getting off his shift at the grocery store. His crush probably stopped by again and Brett is losing his shit as usual.

There’s just enough time to send Brett a bunch of laughing emojis before Taylor hears Boris greeting someone named Mitchell loudly. He looks up to see Boris giving him a pointed look.

 _Oh_. Mitchell, the fucking pizza thief.

Taylor steps up behind the guy, whose back is turned to him. He barely registers the Lightning logo on the thief’s snapback before he’s saying, “Hey man, nice free pizza. Whose account did you get it from?”

The guy turns around. Taylor’s jaw doesn’t drop, but it’s a close thing.

It’s the hot guy from the library. The one with the blue eyes and the Lightning snapback that he and Taylor had a _moment_ over after Taylor knocked it off his head. The—You know, the hot one.

Pizza thieves don’t have a right to be hot.

“It’s you! You were sitting behind me in the library!” Taylor says. It comes out very loud. “You—You pizza thief!”

“Oh, hi,” the guy says, like he’s not standing there holding Taylor’s stolen pizza.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m not telling you my name,” the guy says, evasive as fuck, because he’s a fucking _thief_.

“I already know your name. Boris told me your name’s Mitchell.” Taylor jerks a thumb back in Boris’s direction. “You left it in the instructions when you placed the order.”

Pizza thief sighs a little. “Okay, that was stupid. And it’s Mitch, actually. No one calls me Mitchell except my mom.”

“Holy shit, dude. I was just stabbing in the dark; I thought you used a fake name for the order. That’s _really_ stupid.”

“Hey, I don’t think straight when I’m hungry!”

Mitch blinks up at Taylor for a couple seconds. His eyes really are unfairly blue, even if they’re a little bloodshot right now.

“Yeah well, if you were hungry you should’ve, uh, ordered your own fucking pizza! With your own account! Instead of hacking into mine!”

Mitch’s brows come together. “Wait, what? I didn’t hack into your account. I can barely organize my email.”

“Then you—what?”

“Your account info’s on a post-it on your laptop, you know.”

Which, _obviously_ Taylor knows that. He can’t remember his passwords for shit and he orders Domino’s often enough that it’s good to have his password within reach whenever he’s placing an online order. He didn’t think that anyone else would be _looking_ though.

“You what, took a picture of my post-it?”

“Nah, it was actually pretty easy to memorize, radish98@gmail.com. Cute email, by the way.”

Taylor opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Boris interjects loudly, “Hey uh can you two flirt somewhere else so other people can order? Thanks.”

Oh. They’re still standing in front of the counter, and there are three people waiting behind them, watching them curiously and clutching bills in their hands. And then Taylor registers Boris’s words.

“We weren’t flirting!”

“I thought we were flirting,” Mitch says, looking fake-hurt.

“You stole my pizza. We’re not flirting.”

“Okay, fine. We’re arguing.” Mitch moves to the high table along the wall and Taylor follows him, watching as Mitch carefully sets the box on the table and hops up on one of the stools. He turns and pats the stool next to him, and Taylor hesitates for a moment before climbing up on it.

“Do you normally steal people’s account info and get free pizzas off them?”

Mitch takes his snapback off and puts it on the table next to the pizza box, and then he runs a hand through his hair. The movement makes his arms look great under his t-shirt, and it also stretches the material nicely over his chest. Taylor takes his eyes off Mitch’s body and focuses on the table in front of him.

“Never done anything like that before, actually,” Mitch says. Taylor looks up in time to catch him staring, but Mitch doesn’t look away. “I was just bored, and when I took a break from my paper, your Domino’s password was _right there_ and you were on a bathroom break or something, so I guess I got curious? Logged in just to see if it would work. I was halfway sure it wouldn’t.”

“Are you kidding me.”

“Seriously, I wasn’t going to do anything if it worked! I wasn’t gonna use your money or anything. But uh, you had all these points, you could’ve redeemed like six pizzas or something. And I’ve been working on my marketing paper for hours, said I wouldn’t leave the library ‘til I was done, so I haven’t eaten all day and I don’t know, I got a crazy idea and I thought, it’s a free pizza and you’ll still have five more.”

“I was saving them for finals week.”

“Okay that’s a good idea.” The look that Mitch flashes him is guilty now. “I thought since it’s a free pizza and you have so many saved, it wouldn’t be _too_ bad? I get stupid when I’m hungry.”

As if right on cue, Mitch’s stomach growls. Taylor feels his own answer. It smells _really_ good in the store.

“I can’t believe you were gonna walk out of here with my pizza.”

“I mean, we could share?”

They both stare at the closed box in front of them. It’s still warm.

“You should put pizza thief on your resume,” Taylor says, still eyeing the box.

“You should memorize your passwords or next time it might not be someone as cute as me.”

“You’re not cute. You’re a—a pizza thief.”

God, Taylor is pretty sure that he knows more words than that. He’s in _college_ , for Christ’s sake. He’s hungry though, and his pizza thief is a hot business student, and they’ve been arguing over this pizza for like fifteen minutes now while the pizza goes uneaten.

“Hey, I’m offering to share,” Mitch says.

“You _stole_ my pizza; how is offering to share your stolen pizza with the guy you stole it from supposed to be some kind of generosity?”

Mitch pauses, lips pursed. “I’m really hungry? I could’ve also grabbed it and ran and had it all to myself.”

Which, you know what? That argument has its own twisted kind of logic. Mitch really could’ve just hightailed it out of there with the box instead of staying to chat— _argue_ —with Taylor. They’re arguing.

“What kind of pizza did you get? If you say pineapple I’ll kill you.”

“There’s nothing wrong with pineapple on pizza,” Mitch says, sounding insulted as he reaches for the box and lifts the lid, “but I got extra cheese as the first topping and pepperoni as the second.”

Nice and safe choices, just as Taylor likes them. “That’s good,” he says breathlessly. The pizza looks _so fucking good_. “We’re not gonna talk about the pineapple thing right now.”

Mitch turns the box toward Taylor and gestures for him to help himself first, so Taylor grabs the biggest piece he sees and pulls it out, lifting it to his mouth. That first bite? Heaven.

“Oh my god,” Mitch says through his own mouthful. It’s halfway between a sigh and a moan, and he’s staring at his slice like he wants to do unspeakably dirty things to it. “That’s so good. I’m so hungry.”

“Shut up and eat then,” Taylor says.

 

The free pizza is a medium 12” pie, which, let’s face it, isn’t enough for two hungry boys pushing 6’0” and 200 lb. The last slice goes way too quickly, and Taylor sits back and watches as Mitch licks the grease off his fingers before wiping them on a napkin.

“That was good,” Mitch says. He catches Taylor’s eye and grins.

“Yeah.”

It was probably the best pizza that Taylor’s ever had, sitting on a high stool and sharing it with a funny and shockingly nice guy he’s just met. Like, Mitch really is a nice dude, despite the whole...thing.

“So can I get your name now? Like it was kind of awkward asking for it when you were accusing me of theft, but since we just shared a pizza…”

“Oh yeah, I’m Taylor.”

“Mitch, even though you already know that.”

They shake hands just for the heck of it, even though they’ve spent the last ten minutes rubbing elbows and shooting the shit already. There’s something very college about knowing the guy’s a business major before learning his name.

Mitch hiccups, and then Taylor says, “Damn, I’m still hungry.”

“Oh yeah, me too. I just thought it might be rude to say that.”

Which sets Taylor off laughing. It’s a lot funnier now that he has some food in his stomach and a cute guy to flirt with. “You think that saying you’re still hungry after eating my pizza is _more_ rude than sneaking onto my account to use my points and get free shit off me?”

“Okay, point. Sorry.”

“Nah, ‘s okay. You want another pie? Or we could get those little parmesan bread bites or garlic twists. They’re pretty good.”

“Hey man, I’d love to, but…” An awkward hand gesture that Taylor can’t read.

“But?”

“Look, bro. I’m sorry, but I have like four dollars and fifty cents in my bank account right now, and I owe my roommate Matty a coffee. He drinks these super sugary things that keep him up all night and make him kind of neurotic, but you know, pre-med.” He shrugs, like _what can you do?_

“Yeah, my friend Jozy is pre-med. He’s a little weird.”

“Right? So yeah Matty’s not gonna let the Starbucks thing slide, and Starbucks costs like five bucks, so I kind of need all the money I have in my bank account right now.” Mitch starts to gather up the used napkins on the table, shoving them into the empty pizza box. He wipes down the greasy spots they left behind with a clean napkin and adds that to the pile. When he’s done, he takes a breath and looks up at Taylor. “I’d love to stick around; it was really fun except for the part where I uh—you know. But I just started a new job and I don’t get paid ‘til next week, so I probably shouldn’t be eating out right now.”

And suddenly Taylor feels kind of bad. That pizza was probably the nicest meal that Mitch has had in a while, if he can’t shell out for some bread at Domino’s.

At least Taylor has a job. And sure minimum wage is minimum wage, and Taylor has to listen to Brett absolutely _gag_ over that one cute professional hockey player every other week, but it’s still money in the pocket.

As Mitch picks up the box and starts to slide off his stool, Taylor doesn’t think. He reaches out and grabs Mitch’s arm, holding him to his seat.

“Those garlic bread things are only like five bucks,” he says. And then he reaches for his wallet and pulls out a crumpled ten. “I’ll cover the cost if you do the cleanup?”

“You sure? I sort of ate your pizza.”

“Half of my pizza. And it was free, technically.” He searches Mitch’s startled eyes. “I’m sure, Mitch. It’s just garlic bread.”

“Garlic bread is never just garlic bread,” Mitch points out.

Jesus, Taylor is pretty sure that that’s a line he always imagined his future-husband saying. He quashes the very inappropriate thought and only says, “Do you want it or not?”

Mitch beams. “I never say no to free garlic bread.”

 

Taylor doesn’t end up learning a single thing about the Phillips curve. He still can’t remember shit about unemployment or wages during and after the Great Recession. He’s going to probably fail his midterm in two days, unless he pulls a miracle out of his ass or learns how to physically absorb books into his head by tomorrow.

What Taylor does learn is this:

That when Mitchell Stephens is hungry, he does really stupid things.

That when Mitchell Stephens laughs, he throws his head back, hands gripping the back of the chair he’s straddling, his big shoulders shaking and each individual strand of blond hair catching the light in Taylor’s dorm room.

That when Mitchell Stephens gets off the chair and climbs up on Taylor’s bed and straddles Taylor instead, he’ll push at Taylor’s shoulders until Taylor lays back and lets Mitch take his shirt off for him, fingers digging into Mitch’s hips the whole time until he has to let go.

That when Mitchell Stephens says good night to Taylor at three in the morning, ready to walk back to his own dorm, Taylor should pull him closer by the front of his tee and kiss the goodbye out of Mitch’s mouth.

It’s probably not what Taylor needs to pass ECO 3203, but like, so _so_ worth it.

“I’m gonna, uh, go now,” Mitch says, still in the doorway of Taylor’s room, still kissing Taylor.

“Okay,” Taylor says. He slides a hand under the hem of Mitch’s shirt and thinks about how they could both get naked again.

“My roommate,” Mitch mumbles. “Matty’s gonna be wondering where I am.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than he’s trying to convince Taylor, and Taylor’s perfectly happy to make it harder for him to go.

“Matty should be asleep by now.”

“He has a weird sleep schedule. Pre-meds are always up at all hours, and Mathieu’s one of the worst, ‘specially with that job he has at the store.” And with clear reluctance, Mitch pulls back, jamming his snapback back on his head and checking his pockets for his wallet and keys and other things.

Taylor pouts.

Mitch comes up with a handful of coins from the depths of his pockets. “Oh hey, I have—” He counts. “—twenty-three cents. Forgot about that. You want it?”

“Keep it. Maybe you can buy yourself a nice piece of dust or something.”

“Funny.”

“Yeah, well.” Taylor clears his throat. He doesn’t want to be like, _call me_ because that sounds kind of lame, but he does actually want to meet up with Mitch again. He wonders how likely it is to run into him in the library again. “It was…nice, tonight.”

“Yeah. Best night I’ve had in a while. Could do with more nights like this.”

Mitch hovers in the doorway. Taylor scratches his nose and pushes his hair out of his eyes, wondering how to not make a fool of himself.

“So uh, I guess I really should go. Nice meeting you, T. Stay tight, bro.”

“Yeah um, you too, Mitch. Night.”

Taylor closes his door and leans against it, feeling colossally dumb for not asking Mitch for his number after getting the best fuck he’s had in probably the last couple of months. He strains his ears but doesn’t hear any footsteps walking away, and in a moment of blind hope and stupidity, yanks open the door again.

There’s no one there.

 

It’s not until he’s in his dorm’s basement laundry room, stuffing his sheets into a washing machine at four in the morning that Taylor suddenly realizes what’s been nagging at him for the past couple of hours. He almost drops his phone as he whips it out.

_jozy holy shit you said your roommate’s a business major right?? answer asap this is important!!_

Mathieu doesn’t answer right away like Taylor needs him to, which is so rude. Whatever, Taylor’s pretty sure that he’s right. Or at least he hopes he is, and he’ll apologize in the morning if he’s wrong.

But like, how many other pre-meds named Mathieu have a job at a store and room with a business major?

 _your roommate is a thief!!!_ Taylor texts furiously.

Still no answer from Mathieu. Maybe he’s still crying into that textbook. Either that or he’s mercifully passed out by now.

Taylor throws an arbitrary amount of laundry detergent into the slot and picks a random spin cycle, and then he sits with his back to the washing machine door and buries his face in his arms, trying to bite back the grin that’s splitting his face. He can’t stop the giddy hope from bubbling up inside him though.

He takes his phone out again and pulls up the Phillips curve PDF and starts to read.

 

“So I’m pretty sure I bombed my macro exam yesterday,” Taylor tells Tony when Tony finally re-emerges from wherever the hell he goes during midterm season.

Tony takes one look at the mess Taylor made of their room and just says, “Uh huh.”

“I’ll clean up, promise. I just got back from a shift at the grocery store and I’m dead.”

“Was Brett useless again?”

“I had to carry like 800 pounds of ice all by myself. 800 pounds, Tony. That was like, fifteen trips from the truck all the way to the freezer. All cause Brett was following his hockey player around like a puppy the whole time, instead of helping me.” He knows he’s whining. He gets to whine. “I’m hungry, sore, and I’m gonna fail introductory macroeconomics.”

“Good luck with that,” Tony says, actually sounding sympathetic. He’s tossing stuff in his bag and zipping it up now. “I’m spending the night at Alex’s. Super Smash tournament.”

“Tell Volkov I said hi.”

“Yep.”

The door clicking behind Tony is very final. Taylor throws an arm over his eyes and just lets himself ache for a while. He has things to do. Lessons to go over. Practice problems to solve for his other classes.

He checks his phone. There’s still nothing from Mathieu, and all the most recent texts in their conversation are from Taylor telling him about how he maybe fucked Mathieu’s roommate after yelling at him about pizzas. Knowing Mathieu, he’s probably buried under stacks of paper, mumbling functional groups under his breath and unaware that he even has a phone or friends.

Taylor lays his phone on his chest and sighs a little, disappointed and kind of annoyed.

He’s still lying there when there’s a sudden knock at the door, and Taylor rolls out of bed, groaning at his overworked muscles. “Fuck you, Tony. Remember your key next time,” he shouts.

He opens the door to find Mitch standing there with a Domino’s box in his hands.

“Hey,” Mitch says. He gives Taylor one of his nice smiles, the kind that reaches his eyes and takes over his whole face. This is very irresponsible of him, Taylor thinks. Someone could get hurt from that smile. Like Taylor.

“Hey. Um. Hi.”

“You wanna share? I got large this time.”

“I thought you said you had $4.50 in your bank.” Taylor blinks as Mitch pushes past him and sets the box on his desk. He can see now that it’s actually two boxes stacked one on top of the other. Two large pizzas. His stomach clenches.

Mitch is still beaming up at him like he’s won the lottery or something. “It’s cute that you remember exactly how much I have in my bank account, but I got my first paycheck this week. And I think I owe you one.”

“Oh. Cool.” Taylor closes the door, still kind of confused but also pretty happy to see Mitch.

“Also Matty says you can’t stop talking about me, and you’re blowing up his phone with texts about how awesome I am. Which is good, cause I kind of needed an excuse to see you again after you didn’t give me your number.”

“Jozy _is_ your roommate! I knew it! Tell him to answer his damn phone.” And then, “I didn’t know you wanted me to…”

“Oh, Taylor. Whatever. So…did you wanna have the pizza first or did you wanna—”

He doesn’t get to answer, because Taylor is already kissing him.

“That’s cool. I never say no to cold pizza,” Mitch whispers against his lips, before wrapping his arms around Taylor’s neck and dragging him down to the bed.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a companion Brett-centered piece set in this universe, which I kind of teased here. So there's a lot more to the story of Brett and his crush and their grocery store shenanigans ;)
> 
> Writing [tumblr](https://jveleno.tumblr.com)


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